Prefer banning Pokémon instead of items/abilities

[Zarel]

Hello, PR!

Smogon has a tier system. The tier system is pretty good approximation of ordering by power:

OU, UU, RU, NU

While there are a few exceptions, this roughly approximates a list of Pokémon ordered by how powerful their best set is, from the most powerful to the least powerful.

Note that we clarify "best set", because a Garchomp with nothing but Confide is clearly not at an OU level of power. Also note that by "powerful", we don't just mean "good at 1v1" but also "good at supporting a team" or "good at sweeping when given the right support".

And then we have banlists, which are Pokémon so powerful they make a tier unfun, but not powerful enough to get >1/60 usage in the next tier up.

Ubers, OU, BL, UU, BL2, RU, BL3, NU

This is still roughly approximately a list of Pokémon from the most powerful to the least powerful. Below NU, we can optinally add "NFE" (which, to be exact, means "NFE and <1/60 usage in NU), which is the group of Pokémon we generally don't give Smogon analyses for, to further sort them.

Every Pokémon is in exactly one of these tiers (no more, no less), so given any two Pokémon, either they're in the same tier, or one of them is in a higher tier than the other (in case you care, in math we call this a strict weak order, and the tiers themselves are totally ordered equivalence classes).

We also have four metagames based on these tiers: OU, UU, RU, NU. Because of the tier system, it's very straightforward to describe the rules of these metagames:

- In all four metagames, we have Species Clause, Sleep Clause, OHKO Clause, Evasion Moves Clause, Evasion Abilities Clause, and Moody Clause. These make up the Standard ruleset.
- In every metagame, any Pokémon in a higher tier than the metagame's name is banned.
- Oh, and every tier has a few other miscellaneous bans.

It's that third rule: "Oh, and every tier has a few other miscellaneous bans" that I dislike, since these bans, especially since I think it would be more straightforward for everyone involved to move the corresponding Pokémon to the next BL tier.

In other words, I believe that as much of a tier's banlist should be visible from the tier list as possible, and banning things like Kangaskhanite or Drought undermines the tier system.

Take Drought. Under our Standard ruleset, Ninetales's best set is roughly BL-level.

But Ninetales isn't BL. Under our current tier system, Ninetales will end up NU.

Disadvantage: The tier system no longer orders Pokémon by their best set under the Standard clauses. This has a lot of side effects: What if UU decides to unban Drought? Instead of NU availability depending on just Pokémon straddling the line between RU and NU usage, it also depends on Pokémon straddling the line between Ubers and OU, between BL and UU, and all that.

Advantage: NU gets to use some Ninetales sets but not others, but it might later lose the ability to use any Ninetales set, depending on the whims of the UU council? Why is this an advantage? Our Confide Garchomp is a set that isn't broken in NU either, would it be an advantage to legalize it?

Discuss.


=== FAQ SECTION ===

Q: But Zarel, there are a lot of really cool Pokémon that we want to use in OU, like Latios and Gengar. We don't want to lose them just because GF gave them an overpowered item!

A: Let's address Soul Dew and mega stones separately.

As for Soul Dew: Ubers already uses a different set of clauses than OU and lower. We can add Soul Dew Clause to the set of Standard clauses for OU and below.

As for mega stones: I'm going to suggest something radical: What if we tier Pokémon with mega stones differently from Pokémon without mega stones? So Mega Gengar would be tiered differently from Gengar, Mega Kangaskhan would be tiered differently from Kangaskhan.

If we do it this way, Gardevoir's availability in NU doesn't depend on whether or not Mega Gardevoir ends up in BL or UU or OU, etc, but we still don't lose non-megas if we ban megas. These bans would still be reflected in the tier list, and we'd avoid a lot of the problems that come with banning items.


Q: What about lower-tier bans like SmashPass, which isn't specific to one/two Pokémon?

A: Then we begrudgingly ban it as a clause, since there isn't a better option. But if there is a better option, such as for Drought, why not take it?

 

[Pocket]

I think Oglemi already resolved the main issue you have outlined in this thread: On Snover's Tier Placement PART TWO

 

[Zarel]

I think Oglemi already resolved the main issue you have outlined in this thread: On Snover's Tier Placement PART TWO

Oglemi resolved even worse issues I didn't mention (namely, Drought Ninetales being legal in NU if UU were to unban Drought), but it doesn't resolve anything I mentioned in the thread.

 

[Zarel]

Tagging Antar since I care about his opinion

 

[Pocket]

I actually dig the idea of treating Mega Pokemon as separate Pokemon from its regular form. That's what we do with Arceus formes holding different plates; why can't we treat the megas similarly? :V

This will allow more Pokemon to be played in lower tiers rather than being locked up in higher tiers, because of its mega form. Full Support >:]

 

[Fusxfaranto]

I think it's awful silly to tier megas seperately from the normal Pokemon. Other Pokemon with forms that are tiered separately can't change in battle; we don't tier Meloetta-A and Meloetta-P separately.

 

[Zarel]

Man, tiering megas separately is a side point; I don't really care whether or not we tier megas separately, I just want as much of the lower tiers' banlists to be reflected in the tier list as possible. :|

 

[Cherub Agent]

there are so many exceptions and controversy here (moody, drought, soul dew, megas, smashpass, possible move banning that Koko's doing in UU, soul dew and god knows what else) that i don't think it's worth the trouble. i prefer our current system

 

[Hugendugen]

Just to reiterate:

<@Hugendugen> I don't really care too much either way about most of the points in the thread
<@Hugendugen> I just dont want mega mons tiered differently from their base forms
<@Hugendugen> since they change in game
<@Hugendugen> through mega evolution
<@Hugendugen> similar to meloetta/darmanitan/castform [also cherrim/aegislash]

I'm actually a little iffy on shaymin being tiered as two different pokemon, since it can also change form mid-battle (if it's frozen).

 

[Pocket]

Meloetta is an outlier that I personally would not bring into the discussion... Meloetta can change its form interchangeably by using Relic Song, and iirc it reverts back to it's aria forme when it switches out. edit: same with Castform, really, which changes formes interchangeably depending on the weather (or lack of weather). Lol Zen Darmanitan x_x

Mega formes are committed to its final stage once it mega evolves, which is much more similar to all the other Pokemon formes (Rotom, Arceus, Deoxys).

Zarel, as for making the banlist simpler, I personally don't support it b/c it makes our ban system very rigid. For instance, RU banned Shell Smash + Baton Pass, but you're proposing to ban Gorebyss / Huntail / Smeargle instead? All three of them (well maybe not Huntail) are viable in RU and NU, respectively. What happens if we decided to ban Prankster Swagger? Do we ban Klefki, Thundurus, Meowstic, Liepard to ubers?

Basically, miscellaneous bans are almost inevitable.

I see that you didn't include moves into this thread's title, so maybe you are already leaving some wiggle room there. Still doesn't change the fact that miscellaneous bans would still exist.

As for your Drought scenario: the UU council has deemed the ability Drought to be broken as a whole, due to the immense support it brings to the team - banning Ninetales's best sets was not the council's intentions at all. Anything with Drought would have theoretically been "broken" (ie level 50 Groudon, Vulpix) in the council's eyes. Your comparison between non-Drought Ninetales and Confide Garchomp is really off the mark.

I personally don't care if Ninetales(+Vulpix) / Drought is deemed BL, since it's merely semantics; Ninetales without Drought is as good as dead anyways. Just pointing out the major flaw in your analogy.

ps: greninjad x3
ps2: I assumed (wrongly?) that the usage of mega forms can be calculated separately from its regular form. If that's not possible then... shit
ps3: wow, sorry, Zarel, I missed it x_x

 

[Fusxfaranto]

I think the important thing is that bans should be representative of what's broken, rather than arranged to make the cleanest banlist. Is a Pokemon broken? Ban that Pokemon. Is an ability broken? Ban that ability. In the case of Drought/Ninetales/Vulpix, the argument has been made that because Drought is the most effective use of Ninetales and Vulpix, and sets that use it effectively are broken, Ninetales and Vulpix should be banned. However, this really does not address what is actually broken; it's not so much that Drought "breaks" Ninetales and Vulpix (the way Speed Boost makes Blaziken broken), but Drought alone could make the majority of Pokemon broken individually. Therefore, the proper move would be to ban Drought, as Drought itself is broken, rather than any specific Pokemon that have it.

 

[Oglemi]

I think the main reason we won't tier Mega Evolutions separately from their unevolved counterparts is the fact that our tiering system centers around usage statistics. In order to be tiered correctly, we have to go off the usage of the base Pokemon being used in battle.

In this regard, tiering all of the Megas separately from the base forme creates a situation in which we are tiering ~28 Pokemon based solely on "power level" rather than actual usage. EDIT: There's a distinct disconnect, I'm not sure which would be more affected, the base or the Mega, I think the base.

Bans are the exception, and as fusx points out, we only ban what is broken in its simplest form. Hence, we ban the Mega Stone if that is in itself causing a Pokemon to be broken.

The reason we want to ban the Mega Stone rather than the Pokemon as a whole is that we are banning only what is broken (the Mega Stone) and not a combination ban (Mega Stone + Pokemon), or worse, a subset in-battle Pokemon (Mega Evolution). I won't delve into the particulars of the Blaziken ban, because that is where the simplicity aspect of the broken clause comes into play and not for the scope of this thread.

 

[Zarel]

For instance, RU banned Shell Smash + Baton Pass, but you're proposing to ban Gorebyss / Huntail / Smeargle instead?

That is literally in the FAQ.

Although I didn't know it was just those three Pokémon. I think I'd rather just ban those three in that case, actually.

 

[breh]

I'm actually a little iffy on Shaymin being tiered as two different Pokemon, since it can also change form mid-battle (if it's frozen).

There's about two relevant Pokemon that can actually cause this to happen, 0 SpA Tyranitar and 0 SpA Blissey using Ice Beam. Pretty much everything else within reason that uses Ice Beam or Tri Attack will OHKO Shaymin-S outright. For pretty much all intents and purposes, Shaymin-S and Shaymin are two distinct Pokemon.

 

[Stratos]

I don't know if this is relevant to future decisions on tiering different forms of Pokemon, but in the past this is what we've done, with extremely solid precedent: Everything that can be sent out as your lead gets its own tiering placement. You cannot lead with Castform-Sun, Darmanitan-Z, Mega Gengar, Aegislash-Blade, or Meloetta-Pirouette, but you can lead with Rotom-H, Shaymin-S, or Deoxys-A. This is a simple rule, and one that I personally think we should maintain. (there was ONE divergence from this, the tiering of Rotom-A in Gen IV, but in that case the literal only difference was the presence of one move in the movepool. They were for all other intents and purposes one pokemon, and were tiered differently from Rotom.)

 

[Hugendugen]

There's about two relevant Pokemon that can actually cause this to happen, 0 SpA Tyranitar and 0 SpA Blissey using Ice Beam. Pretty much everything else within reason that uses Ice Beam or Tri Attack will OHKO Shaymin-S outright. For pretty much all intents and purposes, Shaymin-S and Shaymin are two distinct Pokemon.

I'm aware that it's pretty niche and I wont argue too adamantly for it, for practical reasons, but I still think that as a matter of principle, Shaymin and Skymin should be considered the same Pokemon in usage stats and tiering.

 

[Oglemi]

So then the main issue it seems that Zarel has and wants discussed is: Why ban any other aspect apart from the Pokemon?

To which I would reply: we ban what is broken, what is most simple, and what allows for the highest amount of usability left in the game.

So, all of our bans need to focus around these three factors. Take the recent Lucarionite ban. We banned the broken aspect (the item Lucarionite), it was what was arguably most simple (ban of the item as opposed to the Mega Evolution), and allows for the highest amount of usability left in the game (Lucario itself remains usable outside of Ubers).

When we delve into more complex bans such as the SmashPass ban in RU, there's room for argument, but it's arguably the best combination of the three factors I mentioned:

1. Shell Smash + Baton Pass is what was causing issues and is what was broken in the metagame, even on a Pokemon with as shitty stats as Smeargle, meaning that it could be theorized that any Pokemon with the combination of moves would be broken in the metagame.
2. It allowed for the highest amount of usability left in the game (Huntail, Gorebyss, and Smeargle remain usable).
3. It was most simple (ban of a combination of 2 moves, as opposed to a ban on 3 Pokemon, or the banning of a whole move of just Shell Smash or Baton Pass).


I understand the want to be able to see a banlist clearly from the Pokemon tier list. But if we want to have the best possible metagames, with the best level of competition, we need to focus on the above three factors as opposed to trying to be as simple as possible by banning only Pokemon. In short, banning aspects outside of just Pokemon only serves to bolster the system, as opposed to undermining it.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Banning non-Speed Boost Blaziken alongside Speed Boost always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

If anything I think we should make a ban to whatever the situation calls for. If we were to just have bans be pokemon specifically... It kinda feels we may be restricting a bit too much. Honestly, I don't know anyone who really thinks Blaziken without Speed Boost is Ubers material. Honestly, I'm not sure what tier it would fall under in that case...

Kangaskhan without her Mega Stone does not belong to Ubers... Kangaskhan's best showing was in GSC where she's BL and she's not going to get close to that without her stone. Banning all of a pokemon (such as Blaziken) in the case of mega stone or ability when there are is another ability available seems lazy to me.

 

[BurningMan]

Kangaskhan without her Mega Stone does not belong to Ubers... Kangaskhan's best showing was in GSC where she's BL and she's not going to get close to that without her stone. Banning all of a pokemon (such as Blaziken) in the case of mega stone or ability when there are is another ability available seems lazy to me.

Kangaskhan isn't banned just its Mega Stone, we also didn't banned Gengar or Lucario.
Unbanning Blaze Blaziken isn't gonna happen we are not going down the road were we institute complex bans just to bring back one mediocre UU Pokemon to satisfy some fanboys.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Kangaskhan isn't banned just its Mega Stone, we also didn't banned Gengar or Lucario.
Unbanning Blaze Blaziken isn't gonna happen we are not going down the road were we institute complex bans just to bring back one mediocre UU Pokemon to satisfy some fanboys.

I know Kanga isn't banned from OU, I'm referring to the op's wanting to ban pokemon instead of items/abilities.

Is it really that hard to say "all Blaziken with Speed Boost are banned"? That doesn't seem too complex to me.

Since this is Smogon, the community that we boast as the best English speaking group of competitive battlers...it seems excessively lazy for us to just ban an entire pokemon based on an ability or Mega Evo.

 

[Magnemite]

Banning only Blaziken with Speed Boost may not seem like that big of a deal at first, but if we did this, we would have to unban every Pokemon in every BL tier if they weren't broken with a specific ability, because only doing it for Blaziken would be incredibly silly. This would include almost every current BL Pokemon: Staraptor, Wobbuffet, Diggersby, Gothitelle, and Scolipede. Sure, saying "all Blaziken with Speed Boost are banned" isn't overly complicated, but saying "all Blaziken with Speed Boost, all Staraptor with Reckless, all Wobbuffet with Shadow Tag, all Diggersby with Huge Power, all Gothitelle with Shadow Tag, and all Scolipede with Speed Boost are banned from their respective tiers" is really complicated and really doesn't do any favors to people trying to learn which Pokemon is which tier. This is just one of many counterarguments against banning only Speed Boost on Blaziken.

 

[Zarel]

Seriously, I made this point in the first post in this thread. We have a tier system to divide Pokémon by how good they are, specifically, by how good they are if they could have any set. Line-item banning sets like Speed Boost Blaziken is technically possible, it just completely subverts the entire point of the tier system. What about banning Air Slash Shaymin-S?

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Just like the good ol' Stealth Rock Gen 4 days... I don't think I said ban moves on certain pokemon in this thread, if so I apologize. I would only want to ban a move if it proved to be absolutely disgustingly broken on a pokemon that can abuse it or if it promotes unneeded luck like evasion or OHKO.

For the record I like Smogon's tiering system. I'm not debating against that. I think it just could be refined. I'm not sure how this suggestion subverts the tiering system when we did ban Soul Dew in previous generations. We also ban abilities like Sand Veil. I know its for a somewhat different reason, but my point still stands.

I don't think memorizing a few more banned pokemon with x ability will be much harder than memorizing all of the pokemon's names, which even newcomers pick up on quickly. I love how this page is structured http://www.smogon.com/bw/banlist/ if XY's banlists were presented like that with a few more ability/item-centric bans would it really be that bad?

tl;dr I want to promote diversity and think we could refine our banning system by also banning additionally based on items/abilities instead of a banning things like Blaze Blaziken.

Just riddle me this though... Who actually thinks Blaze Blaziken without a Mega Stone is Ubers material? Then why ban it? "Because it is easier" is a pretty lazy answer, don't you think?

 

[Zarel]

Just like the good ol' Stealth Rock Gen 4 days... I don't think I said ban moves on certain pokemon in this thread, if so I apologize. I would only want to ban a move if it proved to be absolutely disgustingly broken on a pokemon that can abuse it or if it promotes unneeded luck like evasion or OHKO.

[...]

Just riddle me this though... Who actually thinks Blaze Blaziken without a Mega Stone is Ubers material? Then why ban it? "Because it is easier" is a pretty lazy answer, don't you think?

So, why is a move different from an ability? This is my point here.

Who actually thinks Confide Arceus with no other moves is Ubers material? Then why ban it?

The point is, Blaziken as a whole is broken (and yes, Speed Boost is part of that whole), so Blaziken is banned. That there exist non-broken Blaziken sets is entirely irrelevant, because there exist non-broken sets for every Ubers Pokémon.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

You are right about moves. It would take 100 years to sort through what move makes x bannable (aside from most of the ones that are already banned) on a mon.

However, unless your name is Ditto every pokemon has a much wider movepool in comparison to abilitypool (okay, that term is kinda lame). That is at least where I would draw the line. I think Smogon is large enough of a community to deal with that.

I personally really don't agree on broadening a ban to a certain species of pokemon (in regards to abilities/items), but I get where you're coming from. I think as Smogon we can do a bit better than how we are doing things, but without killing ourselves over figuring out what moves makes something bannable or not (aside from the rules set in place already perhaps with a few minor exceptions).

I do agree with tiering mega evos separately too. I mean we tier form(e)s separately, so yeah. I still hate the word "forme".

I apologize if I haven't been 100% clear on that, I haven't been sleeping well lately.

Is Blaze Blaziken without a mega stone Ubersworthy? You said as whole Blaziken is broken, but honestly without Speed Boost is Blaziken really banworthy from OU? I think having a bit more diversity wouldn't hurt a few metas, y'know.